Corner of the County Chronicle, with some verses with which he was
perfectly well satisfied. His are the verses signed 'NEP.,' addressed 'To
a Tear;' 'On the Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo;' 'To Madame
Caradori singing at the Assize Meetings;' 'On Saint Bartholomew's Day' (a
tremendous denunciation of Popery, and a solemn warning to the people of
England to rally against emancipating the Roman Catholics), etc., etc.--
all which masterpieces, Mrs. Pendennis no doubt keeps to this day, along
with his first socks, the first cutting of his hair, his bottle, and
other interesting relics of his infancy. He used to gallop Rebecca over
the neighbouring Dumpling Downs, or into the county town, which, if you
please, we shall call Chatteris, spouting his own poems, and filled with
quite a Byronic afflatus as he thought.

His genius at this time was of a decidedly gloomy cast. He brought his
mother a tragedy, in which, though he killed sixteen people before the
second act, it made her laugh so, that he thrust the masterpiece into the
fire in a pet. He projected an epic poem in blank verse, 'Cortez, or the
Conqueror of Mexico, and the Inca's Daughter.' He wrote part of 'Seneca,
or the Fatal Bath,' and 'Ariadne in Naxos;' classical pieces, with
choruses and strophes and antistrophes, which sadly puzzled poor Mrs.
Pendennis; and began a 'History of the Jesuits,' in which he lashed
that Order with tremendous severity, and warned his Protestant
fellow-countrymen of their machinations. His loyalty did his mother's
heart good to witness. He was a staunch, unflinching Church-and-King man
in those days; and at the election, when Sir Giles Beanfield stood on the
Blue interest, against Lord Trehawk, Lord Eyrie's son, a Whig and a
friend of Popery, Arthur Pendennis, with an immense bow for himself,
which his mother made, and with a blue ribbon for Rebecca, rode alongside
of the Reverend Doctor Portman, on his grey mare Dowdy, and at the head
of the Clavering voters, whom the Doctor brought up to plump for the